i + 144 + i folios on parchment of moderate quality, not finely pumiced, but with no use of off-cuts, paginated in black ink, top, outer corner, as pp. 1-288, complete (collation, i8 + ii6+1 [single leaf added after 6, pp. 22/30] + iii-v8 + vi4+3 [three singletons added after 3, pp. 82] + vii2 + viii-xix8), pricked and ruled in hard point throughout, in approximately twelve different hands, all early forms of the textualis libraria/currens: (i) pp. 1-20, 29 (first hand), 30, and 37-46, in black ink on 29-30 ruled lines, (ii) the unpaginated slip inserted between pp. 12-13, pp. 24-28, 29 (third hand), 54-58, 59-62, and 284-287, in brown ink on 28-30 ruled lines, (iii) pp. 21-23, 31-37, and 47-54, a very small hand in brown ink on 29-30 ruled lines, (iv) p. 29 (second hand), in black ink, (v) pp. 58-59, in black ink, potentially not an independent hand but a variant of hand ii, (vi) pp. 63-78, 96, 98-106, 112-113, 187-283, and 287-88, in brown ink, consistently on 27 ruled lines, (vii) pp. 78-80 and 92, in brown ink, on up to 34 unevenly ruled lines, (viii) p. 81, in brown ink, potentially not an independent hand but a variant of hand vii, (ix) pp. 81-92, in brown ink, on 34 ruled lines, (x) pp. 93 and 97 (first hand), in black ink, (xi) pp. 93-95 and 97 (second hand), in dark brown ink on up to 27-28 ruled lines, (xii) pp. 106-111 and 113-186, in black ink, on 26-27 ruled lines, and with headings added occasionally throughout in a late medieval hybrida cursiva, e.g. at pp. 19 and 21, in black ink; two-line red initials, pp. 98, 99, 140, and 141, and in black ink consistently on pp. 1-24, only occasionally thereafter, and almost completely absent as of p. 63, with spaces for initials left throughout; single heading in red ink, p. 98, otherwise without rubrication; book block in good condition, with the exception of near-total loss of text on p. 1 through abrasion. Late medieval FIFTEENTH CENTURY BINDING of brown leather now much abraded, over bevelled wooden boards, sewn on two cords, with white endbands, remnants of white paint on spine, white leather strap attached to metal pin fixings (almost certainly a modern addition), and hole in rear cover where a chain has been removed; parchment pastedowns, now detached from the boards, cut at front from a manuscript of Donatus’s grammar copied in a large textualis formata, and at rear from a later fourteenth-century charter (discussed below), now wrapped (during restoration?) around the nineteenth and final quire. Dimensions 130 x 90 mm.

This is an extensive and early Franciscan or Dominican sermon manuscript, together with sermon exempla and texts related to confession. The ninety-three sermons probably by Thomas Aquinas, and ninety-six other sermons, all but a small handful by unknown authors and identified only in this manuscript, make this a manuscript of considerable scholarly importance. Datable to the third quarter of the thirteenth century, this manuscript was likely copied while the authors of many of these texts, including Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), were still alive.

Provenance

1. The evidence of the script and subsequent provenance supports an origin in Central Europe, likely Southern Germany or Austria. The hands are datable to the second half of the thirteenth century, most likely to the third quarter, c. 1250-1275. The number of hands, the small format of the book, and the nature of the texts – sermons, many by mendicant authors, and exempla – suggests that this may well have been a mendicant friary.

The manuscript appears to consist of at least two production units: a block of twelve quaternions (pp. 97-288), copied in two main hands (nos. vi and xii above), and a more irregular unit of seven quires (pp. 1-96), copied in eleven different hands (nos. i-xi above), where the sixth quire is formed from two bifolia and three singletons bound as a quire of seven leaves, and the seventh and last quire of the unit is a single bifolium of notably tough and poorly-prepared parchment. The presence of hands ii and v in significant quantity in both units (and hands x and xi in the sixth and seventh quires of the first unit, and then again on the first recto of the eighth quire, the first of the second unit, which was presumably left blank originally) indicates, however, that the entire book block was produced in one location.

Geographical localization is difficult, and a mendicant friary of this period may well have housed brethren from across Europe, but the general aspect is southern German and/or central European, perhaps even northern Italian. It is noteworthy that several hands make use of the ‘tall z’, a descendant of the Carolingian ‘h-z’ (where the letter z is written as a tall letter, and threfore distinguishable only with difficulty from the letter h), and in some cases (e.g. hand vi) exclusively so. From around 1225 onwards this letter-form is restricted in its usage in central and northern Europe to the Austro-Bavarian region, and even there is hardly found at all after 1275 (Schneider, 1987, pp. 73 and 167). An origin in this broad area would be consonant with the data that we have on the subsequent provenance of the manuscript, on which see below.

2. Possibly, the Abbey of Benediktbeuern, founded in 739, and one of the oldest and most beautiful in Upper Bavaria, as stated in a note in English in a twentieth-century hand on a card strip loose inside the volume mentioning the removal of the manuscript from this abbey. The source of this information is unknown, but the evidence of the binding provides support to the statement. The binding – which is later in date than the manuscript – includes a back pastedown from the left-hand portion of a charter issued at a provincial chapter by the Augustinian friar Leonhard von Kärnten (of Carinthia), in his capacity as provincial minister of the province of Bavaria and Bohemia, to a widow named Hedwig. The year is not known (it was written on the lost right-hand portion of the charter), and the widow Hedwig, who is described as being devoted to God and to the Augustinian Order, is similarly unidentified. Leonhard von Kärnten, however, was the most senior professor of theology upon the foundation of the theological faculty at the University of Vienna in 1386. He served as provincial minister for three terms, from c. 1372-76, c. 1382-85, and 1387-after 1392, but not after 1396, for he died on 4 October of that year (see Uiblein, 1999, pp. 329-38, and Kunzelmann, 1972, pp. 107-16).

The charter, therefore, dates between c. 1372-1392, and the present binding dates from the fifteenth-century. The large and obvious hole at the upper edge of the rear cover is consistent with the removal of a chain, and the rebinding may have been undertaken in order to replace a less substantial cover with the sturdy boards necessary to permit incorporation into a chained library. The geographical localization of this fragmentary charter lends support to the possiblity that this manuscript once was in the library at Benediktbeuern. At the secularization of the library in 1803, only 155 parchment manuscripts were transferred to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich (more were acquired later by purchase), and a certain number – how many exactly is not yet known – were dispersed more widely. On the Benediktbeuern library and its history, see Glauche, 1994, pp. viii-xvi, Hemmerle, 1991, pp. 64-75, and Ruf, 1932, pp. 63-78.

3. The modern provenance is unknown. The presence of the note in English, mentioned above, suggests that at some point in the earlier twentieth century the manuscript spent time in the United Kingdom or another English-speaking country.

Twelve sermons, all by unidentified authors except the ninth, at pp. 19-21, a sermon for the feast of Mary Magdalene by the Parisian theologian and Franciscan friar Johannes de Rupella or John of La Rochelle (d. 1245) ( Schneyer no. 141 (3:713), in general, see Online Resources, Franciscan Authors database). The first recto (p. 1) is severely abraded, and the text is now only partially legible.

Short notes, entered by three hands (i, iv, ii, and i again, in that order). On p. 29 the collection begins with the text of Judith 15, 10-11 (item i). This followed by a quotation (unidentified) attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux (item ii), and an extract from the twelfth-century pseudo-Bernardine Meditationes piissimae de cognitione humanae conditionis, a treatise on the vileness of human nature (item iii), which corresponds to PL 184, cols 485-508, here col. 490 A-C (see online resources below for full text). The notes on p. 29 are completed by a second scriptural quotation, James 2,10 (item iv), and a short prayer commonly attributed in other manuscripts to Jerome (item v). On p. 30 there is a conglomerate of scriptural and patristic quotations (item vi), starting with the texts of Daniel 3,92 and Isaiah 11,1 – perhaps the material from which to work up a sermon? – and a brief note on the Marian interpretation of the name ‘Repha’ in 2 Samuel 21,10 (item vii).

Ten sermons, copied in two hands (nos. i and iii above), with a couple of headings applied by the late medieval hand. Only one could be identified elsewhere: the seventh, which is also found in the sermon series of Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS lat. qu. 698 (Schneyer, 8:398, no. 401), a fourteenth-century manuscript from the Cistercian abbey of Himmerod. These sermons, although likely collected from various sources, are marked by their clear internal subdivisions, typical of the new style of preaching introduced by the thirteenth-century friars (see d’Avray, 1985).

Thomas of Chobham, Summa confessorum, art. 1 qu. 1a (ed. Broomfield, pp. 5-7) and art 1. qu. 10a (ed. Broomfield, pp. 33-37), both abridged. This work by the English theologian Thomas of Chobham (d. 1233/36) was among the most successful pastoral handbooks of the central Middle Ages. The text here is an abridged version of two sections. The text deals first (adapting qu. 1a) with the nature of true repentance and the absolution of sins in confession. The focus is upon the interior condition of the individual penitent, and not upon formal restitution or compensation. The second section (adapting qu. 10a) is structured around an exposition of the Ten Plagues of Egypt with the negative element of each plague countered by adherence to one of the Ten Commandments.

Eight sermons, with an evident caesura between items iv and v, the latter being the first text in the manuscript to be entered by hand vi, which is then responsible for the remaining sermons in this section. The seventh item finishes imperfectly with the note, recorded above, “The text is missing here. Turn over two leaves and you shall find it.” The second half of the text is then found as promised on pp. 76-77. Only one sermon in this series could be located elsewhere: the second, found in Padua, Pontificia Biblioteca Antoniana, Ms. 470 (Schneyer, 7:367, no. 34), a series of sermons by an anonymous Franciscan. In the Padua manuscript the sermon is for the feast of St Barnabas, whereas in this present manuscript, the saint’s name is replaced by the placeholder ‘N’, allowing the text to be repurposed as required for any saint.

Brief quotations, in the same hand as the preceding sermons (hand vi), on the subject of sin and its confession. Marginal notes attribute the quotations to Augustine, Jerome, Solomon, John, and Bernard.

Seven sermons, none identified elsewhere, some of which are very brief outlines. Added by hands vii, viii, and ix; hand viii is only responsible for the short text p. 81 on the allegorical interpretation of the five loaves of bread in John 6,1-14 -- not, strictly speaking a sermon, but a brief peroration regarding the misery of the human condition. The text immediately preceding it is even shorter, just nine lines, but with its address to the sinner (“O peccator!”), is certainly extracted from a genuine sermon.

A brief treatise on the nature of the suffering of the damned in hell, constructed almost entirely from scriptural quotations (and a single quotation from Gregory’s Moralia). It begins with a treatment of the undying “worms of conscience” burning up the damned internally just as ferociously as the fires of hell burn them externally.

Five Marian exempla; Poncelet numbers 1761,“Charitable Almsman”, 1651, “Ebbo the Thief”, 480, “The Rustic who Removed Landmarks”, 235, “Jew of Bourges”, and 100 (“The Prior of St Saviour’s, Pavia” (Online Resources). Exempla were short narrative tales that were often incorporated into sermons to reinforce moral points. Also found in three important twelfth- and thirteenth-century collections of Marian exempla (none in the order found here): Chicago, University of Chicago Library, Philipps MS. 25142; Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Thott 128, and London, British Library, Arundel MS. 346, ff. 60-73. There is a published diplomatic transcription from the Chicago manuscript (Dexter, 1927; our exempla are nos. 6, pp. 19-20, 7, pp. 20-21, 12, pp. 26-27, 19, pp. 32-33, and 13, pp. 27-28).

Exempla such as these are meant to have a moral point, but the exact nature of that point can sometimes be open to question, as story of Ebbo the Thief demonstrates. The thief Ebbo was as devoted to Mary as he was to his criminal career, and so, on being arrested and hanged, Mary kept him alive by supernatural means for two days. Seeing him alive after two days, the hangman adjusted the noose to put Ebbo out of his misery, but Mary held him aloft. He was then cut down alive, and in thanks, entered a monastery. The exemplum is obviously meant to demonstrate the value of devotion to Mary: yet is it exactly a moral point to suggest that devotion to Mary allows one essentially to get away with a life of crime? It is precisely these incongruities that make these shorter narrative tales of such interest.

The confessional treatise Ad habendum salutifere confessionis ordinem, edited by Pierre Michaud-Quentin, 1964, pp. 60-62, identifying sixteen manuscripts, concentrated in German- and French-speaking Europe, but only three from the thirteenth-century.

This is one of a sizeable number of short guides written in the thirteenth century to assist priests in the provision of confession. This treatise is structured with he seven deadly sins first, each envisaged as a tree with many branches of subordinate sins, followed by offences against the seven sacraments, offences against the ten commandments, and offences committed by the five senses and by other parts of the body from head to toe (e.g. “de ore polluto per oscula”, “regarding the mouth polluted by kisses”). The opening includes a list of matters on which to question young boys in confession: disobedience towards their parents, lies told about other family members, theft, forming gangs with other boys, scrumping fruit and stealing chickens.

A basic table of contents only of William Peraldus (or Perault), Summa de vitiis; the Dominican friar Peraldus’ treatise de vitiis, written c. 1236, became one of the most important thirteenth-century pastoral handbooks for the mendicant orders (Online Reources below).

Thomas Aquinas, Quadragesimale, Third Series, and/or the sermons of the Milanese Dominican Johannes de Opreno (on whom see Kaeppeli, vol. 3, p. 516, and Schneyer, vol. 3, pp. 616-56). This series of 93 sermons, presented in this manuscript as a discrete block, corresponds in very large part to the series of sermons listed by Schneyer as the third quadragesimale of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) (Schneyer 5:622-27). This overlaps significantly with part of the Sermones de mortuis attributed to his Dominican confrère Johannes de Opreno (d. 1270) (Schneyer 3:645-56). Smaller parts of these series further overlap with an anonymous series of Dominican sermons preserved in Erfurt, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Ampl. 8o 64, ff. 67v-289v (Schneyer 6:567-74), and an anonymous series of sermons preserved in London, British Library, Add. MS. 16590 (Schneyer 8:485-95). The precise relationship between the two main sermon cycles is unclear, and awaits further study, not least in light of this manuscript: the preaching of Thomas Aquinas is one area of his voluminous work that has received relatively limited scholarly attention.

The series as presented in this manuscript has a strong degree of internal coherence. This is marked not just by the repeated address to “beloved brothers” (“fratres karissimi”), but also by the fact that all but three of the 55 sermons begin with a lemma taken from one of the four Gospels, with a notable focus on Jesus’s public ministry. That this series as preserved here (and not as in the Berlin manuscript) is in something approaching the form in which it was first conceived is confirmed by the fact that two of those three sermons not beginning with a Gospel lemma (nos. i, xxx, and liv) are the only two in the entire series that can be attributed to known authors, and are thus obviously secondary interpolations into an original sermon cycle. Sermon xxx, which begins with Apoc. 19,9, is known as a sermon ascribed to the early twelfth-century writers Honorius Augustodunensis (Schneyer 2:723), no. 57 (printed in PL 172, cols 1043-46), and Werner von Ellerbach (Schneyer 5:718), no. 73. Sermon liv, which begins with Is. 60,8, is likewise known as a sermon from the pen of Honorius Augustodunensis (Schneyer 2:721), no. 3 (printed in PL 172, cols 831-36).

Four sermons, added secondarily to the end of the much longer preceding sequence by hands ii and vi. The third in this sequence, for the feast of John the Baptist, can be identified as a sermon by the famous twelfth-century theologian Hugh of St Victor (Schneyer 2:796), no. 149 (printed in PL 177, col. 539).

Literature

d’Avray, David. The Preaching of the Friars. Sermons Diffused from Paris before 1300, Oxford, 1985.